the hollywood bowl

On Tuesday we went out to dinner and then to the Hollywood Bowl with some friends, and I was so excited to get out of the house after being cooped up for so long (I took my last dose of antibiotics today and I feel great) that I am worried I just talked the whole time in the car there and back.  

Bob assures me I did not, but it felt like I did.

Some kind friends graciously passed along some tickets to us and they were box seats, so that was super cool to be able to see things so clearly and have a chair with a back on it. The concert was played by the LA Philharmonic (the Bowl is their summer venue) and was called Magnificent Mozart.

The sisters who did a piano duet as part of the concert had really good, dramatic hair -- long and black and wavy -- and dramatic, flowing pantsuits -- one in red and one in purple -- and I thought, how fun to do piano duets with your sister for a living and have dramatic hair and dramatic pantsuits.

The music was also dramatic.  The duet the sisters played was Mozart's "Concerto for Two Pianos," which Mozart had played with his sister, Maria Anna.  He had written the music all down very carefully so that his sister knew exactly what to play, which is good for us today, because usually when Mozart played duets with people, he just sat down and started playing "whatever" (which you can do when you are a prodigy, apparently), and consequently we don't know what a lot of that "whatever" sounded like.  I bet it was really good whatever.

The conductor was wonderful! His name was Nicolas McGegan.  He seemed to absolutely love his job. He was joyful and you could tell he would be a great dancer.  

I am uneducated about music and don't know how to discuss it, but it was all pretty and I liked it a lot. Most of Mozart's music makes me think of somebody getting chased through a field, or running through a field chasing something.  Exciting.

I also love the Hollywood Bowl.  (If you are unfamiliar with the Hollywood Bowl, it is an amphitheater snuggled into the Hollywood Hills.)  The thing above the stage that makes it look like an alien ship is called "the shell."  The Hollywood Bowl originally opened in 1922, and has had a few different shells over the years.  

The shell that Frank Lloyd Wright built only lasted for 1928 because they didn't fold it up and put it away for the winter like they were supposed to.  I bet he was irritated.

The next shell lasted from 1929 until 2003, but apparently the acoustics weren't great.

The new shell was unveiled in 2004, and it's neat because now it has some video screens off to the sides so you can see close-ups of the performers during the show.  And people who know about such things say the acoustics are much better.  I take their word for it.

If I had been floating in the sky when I took the photo above, you would have seen the Hollywood Hills in the distance behind the stage, and the famous "Hollywood" sign.  

The "bowl" refers to the hillside that the theater is in, and it does feel like you are sitting in a bowl of music, surrounded by trees.  The air smelled good and the light was soft and the breeze was really calming and gentle (just cool enough for a sweater), and Mozart was chasing or being chased, and it was all perfect.

Are there any outdoor concert venues where you live? If you have been to the Hollywood Bowl, who have you heard perform there?